


silence the world's heartache (for me)

by wintercreek



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Telepathy, Yahtzee's Star Trek Drabblefests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-18
Updated: 2009-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Spock had discovered upon entering Starfleet Academy was that something, perhaps his Human heritage from his mother, made him particularly sensitive to the Human minds around him. Other species were no louder to him than they were to any other Vulcan - it was only the Human minds that drew his mental ear. It was an asset when he chose to extend his sense deliberately; it was not too great a hindrance the rest of the time, and it did provide ample incentive to keep up his mental disciplines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	silence the world's heartache (for me)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _42\. Spock/Uhura, every breath you take,_ for the Star Trek Reboot Drabble Challenge #3.
> 
> Thanks to Kate for an awesome beta job, to Were_Duck for pointing out that this story deserved to be more than a few paragraphs of memory in a different fic and for giving it a final check, and to Sineala for writing the [Crash Course in Linguistics for Star Trek Fen](http://sineala.livejournal.com/952235.html) and for kindly doing a linguistics beta on this fic. All remaining errors are, of course, my own.

Spock had tested unusually high psi as a child, an attribute credited to his father's high psi rating; his mother was more sensitive than many Humans, but her psi rating was on the low side of average by Vulcan standards. On Vulcan, where everyone was telepathic to some degree and thus correspondingly trained in shielding techniques and psionic courtesies, Spock had barely noticed. Sarek had sent him for the usual training and provided some advice of his own, and they'd concluded that this would be sufficient preparation to go out into the galaxy, where the chaotic emotions swirling around other species would be held in check by their own lack of telepathy. They had anticipated a future at the Vulcan Science Academy and a distinguished research career. Advanced training would have been superfluous.

What Spock had discovered upon entering Starfleet Academy was that something, perhaps his Human heritage from his mother, made him particularly sensitive to the Human minds around him. Other species were no louder to him than they were to any other Vulcan - it was only the Human minds that drew his mental ear. It was an asset when he chose to extend his sense deliberately; it was not too great a hindrance the rest of the time, and it did provide ample incentive to keep up his mental disciplines.

Spock had diligently practiced the mental shielding techniques he learned as a child and found them to be mostly effective. His cadet days were marked by an unaccustomed willful filtering-out of the mindvoices that occasionally – around exams, when the mental focus of his fellow cadets was particularly intense – left him with headaches but did keep his thoughts his own. The intensity of shielding had become second nature by the time Spock took a field posting. In the reduced mindpool of a ship's crew he was able to relax in the lower volume level, the murmur of a small gathering more often than the chaos of a crowd.

Returning to the Academy had been a shock, but it was the best option for Spock's doctoral work. Particularly unwise, Spock thought in retrospect, was taking a teaching appointment in xenolinguistics. The study and teaching of languages was most rewarding to Spock. The constant mental chatter of his students was not. Even in the midst of his lectures, he was bombarded by Human minds shaping phonemes and subvocalizing conjugations.

One evening, tired from the day's lessons and yet dutifully holding office hours, he discovered that Nyota Uhura's presence aided in his efforts to shield. She was one of his best students, with a sensitive ear and an intuitive grasp of terms without direct analogues, and she had come to his office to continue a promising line of comparison between Bolian and Andorian vowels. Spock had not noticed her entrance, as he was intent on the use of pressure points relieve his headache. When the press of a building's worth of academic minds suddenly receded, he looked up in surprise and saw her standing beside his desk.

"Sir? Is this a bad time?"

Spock succeeded in subduing most of his relief; only a small amount of it colored his reply. "No, Cadet, this is an excellent time for our discussion."

She sat in his visitor's chair and pulled out her notes. Spock did not know whether her presence strengthened his shields or dulled his perception but, in either case, her proximity left him able to sense predominantly her mind and his own – the other mental voices were reduced to a whisper.

"I've been doing some reading about the sound rendered in the Interplanetry Phonetic Alphabet as 'schwa' and its use in both Bolian and Andorian – I know there's no link between the planets that coincides with language development, but the uses are too similar to be dismissed."

Spock tilted his head. "What explanation do you suggest, then?"

Uhura slid a single page of hardcopy across the desk to him – lists of phonetically rendered words in three languages. "Federation Standard, and the dominant lingua francas of Andoria and Bolarus IX." She gestured at each column in turn. "Standard is essentially an expanded version of Terran English, as you know, so it's inherited English's use of schwa as an epenthetic vowel. For my term paper, I'd like to conduct interviews and observations with Andorian and Bolian individuals, perhaps other cadets, and see if the schwa serves as a similar 'default' epenthetic vowel for them." Her mental overtones conveyed her desire that he approve her plan. "I thought it might serve as a topic for my thesis."

"Do continue." Spock looked up from the lists, nodding approvingly. Her proposed research would be an excellent avenue of investigation. Listening to her outline the work ahead of her was a pleasure both conversationally and telepathically. Uhura's mind was orderly, almost Vulcan in its logical progression from one idea to the next, and her attitudes were flavored with delight in the differences between languages and cultures. It was altogether refreshing to have her mind at the periphery of his own.

Uhura's dampening effect was a phenomenon he was unable to explain. Merely being in her company continued to be enough to dim his sense of the minds around him, a fact which led him to seek her out regularly outside of class and enjoy her company on two distinct levels: the telepathic quietude she provided coupled with the intellectual stimulation of their interactions. His office hours seldom ended without her visit, and when the term ended and her comparative work was complete he proudly watched her defend her thesis. He saw her graduate with honors and be commissioned a lieutenant, although he did not presume to impose upon her celebration with her family. As she began her graduate coursework, they became regular Saturday afternoon occupants of a coffee shop near campus whose tea pleased them both.

When their relationship developed into one which included physical touch, Spock discovered that direct contact with Nyota Uhura blotted out his sense of all minds but hers. It signified something, he was sure, but he was reluctant to examine too closely what that might be.

The change began innocently enough. Nyota – she had long since invited him to address her informally, and he had reciprocated – had been unfailingly polite in her efforts to avoid uninvited skin-to-skin contact with him. She was obviously well acquainted with the appropriate behaviors to be observed in the company of touch-telepaths. But one day as she stood behind his chair in the coffee shop, reading his PADD over his shoulder, a passing customer jostled her forward and her hand brushed Spock's neck before she steadied herself on the chair back. The contact was so brief that Spock would not have noticed it had it not been for the near total mental silence he experienced during it. To hear only his mind and Nyota's in the midst of a city of Humans with their turbulent cascading thoughts was a relief he had not thought to find.

A week later, Spock requested Nyota's permission to perform an experiment to see if the effect could be replicated. He promised to explain afterward, not trusting himself to marshal his thoughts properly until the outcome had been ascertained, and told her that only superficial contact was required. When she consented, he took her hand in his. The effect was replicable.

Spock described his experiences to her, limited by the imprecise terminology with which Standard handled telepathy. He mastered the frustration with the imprecision; similarly, he mastered the anxiety that she would find this, or him, odd and withdraw both her company and the silence she could draw around them. He could only present the facts of his observations. She would do as she thought best.

Nyota did seem shocked, but not in the way Spock had anticipated. "You mean you've been living with all these minds pressing in on yours?" She offered him her hand again, instantly. "And touching me blocks them out?"

"That is correct." He took her hand, grateful. Spock could feel the fine muscles of his face relaxing as he dropped his concentration on shielding.

"Just me?" Nyota furrowed her brow. "Or are there others? Is this common?"

Spock lifted an eyebrow. "If it is common among full Vulcans, I am unaware of it. The data available to me suggest that it is common to Human-Vulcan hybrids - I am the only one to have reached maturity thus far, so the entirety of the sample population share this trait," he said, wry. "I do not know of any full Vulcans with similar sensitivities, although my father might provide an interesting point of comparison. And to return to your first question, yes. Only you have this effect on me."

Nyota laughed a little. "That sounds like a bad line."

"Line?" Spock's eyebrows moved higher.

"A pick-up line. 'Only you have this effect on me.'" Nyota's tone shifted, lightly mocking as she repeated his words back to him.

"Ah." Spock privately found Terran courtship rituals tedious and unnecessarily complex; pick-up lines were an area of cultural exchange he had chosen to ignore. "In this case, it is factually correct. I know of no other individual whose presence dampens my telepathic perception of Human minds by mere proximity."

Nyota squeezed Spock's hand. "Well, I'm glad to be able to help you. Is the time we spend together –" she paused, "– sufficient, or would you prefer more?" She made a face. "That sounds like a line too, doesn't it."

"More would not be disagreeable," Spock told her, ignoring her aside. "And what is your opinion on prolonged physical contact? This relatively superficial kind is quite effective for me," he added, holding up their joined hands.

"Mr. Spock," she said, smiling, "I would be delighted to hold your hand."

Nyota proceeded to compel Spock to disclose all the places in San Francisco he had not visited, expeditions he had foregone due to concerns about the concentration of Human minds in many of the city's noted historical sites and colorful neighborhoods. They went to all of them together, meeting on Saturday mornings for their excursions and discussing the morning's outing during their traditional afternoon ensconcement at the coffee shop. It seemed only natural for Spock to request that Nyota join him for dinner the evening after their exploration of the Embarcadero. From then on they were rarely apart in their waking hours, save for their academic commitments.

Their behavior bore a close resemblance to the Terran custom of dating, a fact Nyota's roommate pointed out to Spock rather pointedly one morning as he waited for Nyota to find her rain coat. It seemed Gaila felt that if Spock was going to monopolize Nyota's time, the least he could do was be a proper boyfriend and fulfill the physical obligations of such a relationship.

"I know Humans can be weird about this, but I'd expect better from a Vulcan's logical mind. You do know that you're dating her, right?" Gaila crossed her arms.

Spock looked at the closed door of Nyota's room, willing her to emerge. She did not.

Gaila persisted. "I mean, she's with you all the time. I _know_ she's interested in you, and she definitely isn't going out with anyone else, or bringing anyone else home. You should make it official, Spock. Kiss her! See what happens!"

Spock was saved from answering by Nyota's triumphant emergence with both a waterproof jacket and an umbrella.

He remained preoccupied by it, however, and missed several key sentences in Nyota's descriptions of North American regional variations in the use of the term "drizzle" to describe precipitation. When they stopped under a tree, the leaves of which blocked the light rain but occasionally caused larger accumulated drops to thump down on their umbrella, Nyota turned to him; he could feel her puzzlement and intent to inquire after his distraction. "Spock-" she began.

Spock leaned in and kissed her, finding it prudent to bypass verbal conversation entirely.

Kissing was no different from hand contact as far as the silencing effect went, but it did seem to be a rewarding way of achieving the required touch. Certainly Nyota approved of his actions, if her smile and initiation of further kissing were accurate indicators – and they were, matched by mental sensations of pleasure and surprised delight. The look on her face reminded him of the expression his mother wore when his father succeeded in bringing a new variety of Terran rose bush through Customs.

It was, Spock thought, an elegant solution. Mutual enjoyment of this new activity could only augment the satisfaction they found in their time together, with the additional benefit of bringing their relationship into accord with cultural expectations. An ordinary progression, viewed from the outside; from the inside, most extraordinary, as all the points leading up to it had been.

It remained to be seen what would come of this, but it seemed likely that things would continue on their current path: ordinary and extraordinary, each in every breath.


End file.
